TEHRAN– Iran’s Minister of Industry, Mine and Trade Reza Fatemi Amin has said that the volume of the country’s foreign trade was $120 billion last Iranian year (ended March 20, 2022), which was carried out using different methods such as bartering.
He made the comment at a meeting with Andrei Savinykh, Ambassador of Iran-Belarus Parliamentary Friendship Group in Tehran.
The Iranian minister referred to Western sanctions imposed on his country over the past four decades, and said that Iran has made progress despite those measures.
He noted that one of the fields which Iran has developed is the production of medicine and medical equipment.
Regrading that and other areas of cooperation, Iran and Belarus can promote their ties beyond imports and exports, and they can enter into projects to jointly produce products and enter markets in other parts of the world, Fatemi Amin said.
He added that the two countries can also work on jointly producing laser products, given Belarus’ capabilities in this regard.
The Iranian minister said that mining is another field of cooperation.
He put focus on projects of copper exploration and extraction, with reference to Iran’s discovered resources of copper, which he said account for 7% of the world’s sources.
He referred to an upcoming visit by an Iranian economic delegation to Belarus and recommended that preparations are carried out for making a roadmap for cooperation in order to speed up work.
Savinykh, for his part, said that Belarus views Iran as a good and trusted partner whose presence is essential to create a structure for economic and scientific development in the Eurasia region.
He also referred to looming changes in the financial sector in the world, and said that Belarus will over the next several years shift from the dollar to using local currencies in its trade and economic activities.
That would remove obstacles to economic development too, he added.
Savinykh also said that Belarus has begun initial work to launch direct flights with Iran, and called on Tehran to support the project.